Representatives of striking municipal workers had a second round of salary increase negotiations planned with employers on Wednesday, Samwu spokesperson Tahir Sema said.

They met the South African Local Government Association (Salga) on Tuesday for the first round and further information on their push for an 18% increase would be released later, said Tema.

The strike is in its second week, but is not supported by Samwu Gauteng members whose leaders are embroiled in allegations on missing funds levelled at its provincial leaders.

Last year unions agreed to a multi-year agreement which sealed a 6.08 increase for 2011 with the proviso that negotiations could be reopened if inflation was below 5% or above 10%.

The latest inflation figure, released by Stats SA on Wednesday was 5.3% for July, but until June it was under 5% for over a year.

Sema said Wednesday increase announcement by Stats SA should not affect their campaign as the wording of the multi-lateral agreement did not make provision for an increase over 5% once negotiations had been reopened.

When they announced that they had reopened negotiations, the parties had agreed that inflation was 4.08%, according to private research.

Sema said that although inflation was relatively low, workers' real experience was of rising fuel prices, rising prices of other basic necessities and the anticipated additional cost of road tolls.

A conciliator for the parties proposed a 7.5% increase for the sector, but this was rejected by Salga, said Sema.

The Tshwane council said on Tuesday that they had discussed the implications of the strike with Samwu members and those members had decided to go back to work.

In the Nelson Mandela Bay municipality, spokesperson Kupido Baron said staff attendance was good but they also had to take into account staff safety.

As a precautionary measure they had closed the libraries in the metro.

In Durban municipal workers were still on strike, with a march through the city underway.

Sema said they hoped that something would change as a result of Wednesday's negotiations.